Saturday, October 2, 2010

Learning about Threats to our Stream

We had another session with Robynne from Manukau City Council Parks on the threats to our local stream environment. She told us a great deal about the problem with weeds in New Zealand. There have been 2000 introduced plant species but we only have 200 native plant varieties. We are being swamped by some particular plants which have been escaping into our forests and parks.

The Manukau City Council has produced a pamphlet for people so they can recognise and control the problem plants.

We learned:

our particular problem weed at the EPS Stream is Tradescantia (commonly known as Wandering Jew)

some pest plants can grow from a single small piece (tradescantia is one of these) and they should be disposed of carefully- not thrown into a pile or dumped on waste ground or parks

how to roll up the tradescantia plant carefully and email the MCC when it is ready for contractors to collect

Here are photos from samples she brought in for us, and from her slide presentation: